Our clienteles are located mostly in the English-speaking world. And so far, I had not been proactive enough to extend support for internationalization in our solutions. The obvious reason being the high cost factor associated with professional translation services. Moreover, our products keep on evolving which means new patches and changes would need to go back to the same translation mechanism. In short, this recurring relationship comes at a high cost and effort, something we don’t have the capacity for at this juncture. However, recently I was analyzing the annual reports of problem areas reported from our users in our archive emails of our mailbox. And to my surprise, 18% of the queries were related to native language support in our apps. And assuming those who wrote to us were a marginal minority, I would imagine the vast majority of non-English users would have simply moved on to search for another similar solution. So, the fact that nearly a fifth of potential non-English customers contacted us is enough to instill a reawakening in our approach towards supporting internationalization in our products.

What is Language partners program? It is a way for one to become a volunteer in translating one or more of our products in one’s native language. Our language partners help us translate our products into the diverse languages people speak across the globe. They do so by lending us their language and communication skills. In return for their work and time, we provide our language partners with a variety of benefits and rewards such as

FREE enterprise license (unlimited seats) for use within your organization only for the product being translated.

FREE life-time upgrades to new versions

FREE life-time support subscriptions

Recognition on our Language Partners web page, including your name, a brief profile (optional) and a complimentary link to your website (if you have one)

So, what are the requirements to becoming a Language Partner? Not much actually..

You must be a native speaker of a language other than English, along with a thorough understanding of how to read and write in your native language.

You must be able to speak, read and understand English well enough that our team can communicate with you.

After applying to our Language Partners Program, your request will be reviewed. If you are selected, I will be in touch with you and will ensure you are provided with all the files and tools necessary to start the translation process.

What are the products for which we are seeking language partners for? Currently, the products for which we invite language partners are:

Our localization effort was first initiated with ‘Team Helpdesk for Outlook‘ and today, it supports 8 European languages – Español, Norwegian, Dutch, Deutsch, French, Finnish, Swedish and of course English. This multilingual support is only possible because of valuable contribution from our own users based in these regions, who volunteered to translate the English phrases to their corresponding native language. I have come to realize that our own customers are more than eager to help us out in translation because the values and solutions provided by our products are unmatched. Moreover, their working policy and culture is based on their native language and so are the applications they come to rely on.

The most recent language support added is for Arabic in ‘Team Issue Tracker for Outlook & SharePoint‘. Unlike other European languages that are based on Latin, languages such as Arabic, Hebrew etc. are not. Simply put, it requires more work and effort to work with unicode characters. To give a preview, here are some screenshots

1. The Explorer Ribbon interface in Outlook 2013

in English

in Arabic

2. Ticket form in Outlook

in English

in Arabic

3. The Administrator console panel in Outlook

in English

in Arabic

Meeting the needs of our international customers means ensuring our products are properly translated into their native language. To be able to do this, I am counting on our Language Partners Program and hope this relationship would be a win-win situation for the participating volunteers and for our products in getting a wider audiences. If you or your organization would want to join this program, please do write to me and I will be happy to offer you whatever I can in return for your valuable time and effort. To learn more, visit the language partners page

About

Bahrur Rahman is Founder of AssistMyTeam, a technology venture that helps small and medium businesses attain efficiency and reap maximum benefits and value out of their investment in Microsoft. bahrurBlog provides an insight into his strategy, vision for AssistMyTeam as well as general tips and solutions to overcome the challenges and pitfalls SMB experienced when integrating business processes with Microsoft ecosystems - Office, Exchange and SharePoint.